Saturday, March 26, 2011

Breyers BLASTS! Chips Ahoy Frozen Dairy Dessert

Like many of you, I was intrigued... no, I'll be honest, I was bothered by the fact that the new Breyers BLASTS! lineup has two cookie based flavor. It just didn't make sense. So, like any well meaning reviewer, I went out and picked up a container of Chips Ahoy! BLASTS!

Here it is and here's the description: Chips Ahoy! mini chocolate chip cookies, chocolatey chunks and a fudge swirl in cookie flavored frozen dairy dessert (with other natural flavors). Ok, now read that again and notice it says cookies, not cookie dough, and that my friends is the difference here.

Hmmm, yeah, ok, not exactly what I was expecting.

There are six cookies in this shot, can you spot them all?

Before we start, let's take a closer look at the cookies. Now I'm glad this picture came out because you can see just how big these cookie chunks are (they're about a quarter inch thick). These may actually be the biggest cookies I've seen yet. They are bigger then the ones I found in Turkey Hill's Ginger Snap Ice Cream, and maybe even bigger than the ones in Ben & Jerry's Snickerdoodle Cookie Ice Cream.

Now that I've got your hopes sufficiently raised.... let me take them back down a few notches. This flavor is a weird one, at least that's what I thought at first. On the first scoop, I couldn't get the thought of coconut out of my head. The weird combo of taste and texture threw me for a loop and I really didn't know what to think. I was totally put off and had no urge to go try it again.

I waited several days and went back for the second scoop last night. The good news is that I figured out what Breyers was going for. You see, the little cookies are literally everywhere. Now I'm not sure it's a straight chips ahoy flavor because I don't think I've had one in about 15 years, but it's the same general idea. It dawned on me that Breyers is trying to create an ice cream cookie sandwich inside this container. That's why you can't escape the cookie, you aren't meant to! When you are eating it, go slow, and try to visualize that you are eating a ice cream cookie sandwich. You can't really taste the fudge directly, and the chips are just there for crunch, so I did my best to try and scoop different ice cream to cookie ratios to maximize that sandwich vibe. The bad news is that I still think of coconut most of the time...

Overall, I'm going to give Breyers some credit for their creativity, and I'm guessing this flavor will work for some people, it's just not made for me. Just do your best to keep an open mind with this one.

The extra ingredients are tasty enough, but the 'frozen dairy dessert' substitute for ice cream is not very good, and certainly not anything like ice cream. Anyone familiar with the historically great Breyers ice cream will be sorely disappointed in the base of this stuff!

I picked this up last night and actually liked it...the past few years I've hated Breyers so I'm glad they won me back with this one..I also thought of an ice cream sandwich and I totally appreciate the crunchy cookies..I love coconut but I def didn't pick up on it like you did Dubba..

I am hopeful that the original recipes will be brought back as classic mint chocolate ship with creamy delight, actual natural mint, real vanilla bean flavoring and real choclate chips(not chocolate flavored) with no tara gum!. Otherwise, I have purchased my last half gallon (1.5 quarts) of Bryers products! IMAO

I did not enjoy this product at all. Almost all of the Chips Ahoy! cookies in my container were grounded up and swirled throughout like a ribbon. In the whole container I had about 4 bite-sized cookies. Now, the ground up cookie bits wasn't a bad thing - it's not what I was expecting - but it works if and only if there is enough of them to go around. While there was a fair amount I still wanted more. But for me the true spoiler was the fudge and chocolate chips as there was way too much of them. The fudge was so abundant that it turned my white vanilla ice cream into a brownish color that tasted like a mellow chocolate ice cream flavor. Coupled with the abundance of chocolate chips, the chocolate flavor was too overwhelming, ruining the entire treat. What Breyer's should have done was remove both the fudge swirl and the chocolate chips and double or triple the amount of cookie bits - both the ground up cookie bits and the whole, bite sized cookies - to compensate for the removal of the fudge and the chocolate chips. Then, this would be a better frozen dairy dessert with the mighty cookie flavor that I was looking for.

Your explanation of what they were going for with this ice cream has me at least appreciating it a bit more. I can see how it'll be really tasty to some people. I thought the idea of yummy cookie chunks in normal, vanilla-flavored ice cream sounded great! It wasn't until I got home and tried it that I realized the ice cream was "cookie-flavored." To me it tasted like over-sugary frosted cupcakes, lol.